<p>Reaching is an important and early emerging motor skill that allows infants to interact with the physical and social world (e.g., when sharing objects). Despite the importance of motor experiences in early infancy, few studies have considered the influence of reaching behavior on cognitive, social, and motor development. In this dissertation, reaching behavior was selectively manipulated in 73 non-reaching three-month-old infants using four different training interventions. Infants' reaching and social cognition skills were assessed and compared, and the long-term effects of one particular training intervention were explored.</p> <p>Of the four training interventions used here, one procedure--referred to as active training--facilitated domain-specific development (reaching and grasping behavior) and increased infants' preferential orienting towards faces in a visual-preference task (face preference). None of the remaining three training interventions facilitated motor development and only one increased face-preference behavior. However, a relation between face-preference behavior and motor experience was present in all trained infants as well as in three- to 11-month-old untrained infants. In untrained infants, face-preference behavior was the earliest social-cognition skill to emerge and was related to later emerging skills such as gaze following. Therefore, a preference for faces may be an important basic social-cognition skill that influences future social development.</p> <p>Additionally, the long-term effects of the active-training procedure were assessed in 14 infants who were tested one year after they had participated in the active-training intervention. Even after one year, converging evidence showed advanced manual exploration and object-engagement skills in trained compared to untrained infants. </p> <p>The studies described in this dissertation attempt to systematically investigate the role of early reaching experiences on subsequent development of motor and social cognition behaviors. The present findings demonstrate the importance of self-produced motor experiences on the development of social cognition and have implications for our understanding of typical development and the etiology of developmental disorders in social cognition.</p> / Dissertation

Memento Mitten is a project about seeing human hair from the perspective of sustainability as a viable alternative material. The project also aims to question our reluctance in Western Europe to use it in projects and innovations. It explores the process of transforming hair from waste into a functional piece (a mitten) by using traditional handicraft (hand carding, hand spinning and nålbinding) as a change agent in order to alter our perception of hair. Relating anthropologist Mary Douglas’ theory on dirt to the Freudian definition of ‘Das Unheimliche’ (The Uncanny) the project further examines and dissects the emotional aspects of Uncanniness and the anxiety we perceive when in contact with disembodied hair.  Leaning on Douglas’ theory on dirt I developed a framework for action that could potentially have the transformative ability to, when applied to creative practices, recontextualize hair from uncanny waste into an emotionally safe material. Utilizing auto-ethnographic documentation, physical exploration and participatory elements (through design interventions), four phases were identified: rejection (identifying hair as waste), re-collection (collecting hair), dissolution (taking apart the hair through acts like hand carding) and assimilation (putting the hair into a new context). These phases, which I titled The Altered Phases of Dirt, showed that they had the potential to move our inner margins of comfort beyond Uncanniness through the physical engagement found in handicraft.

Undersökningens syfte var att belysa vilken typ av information som utställningen ”Mittens rike” på Östasiatiska museet gav och därav visa ett exempel på hur det kinesiska kulturarvet kan tolkas av att befinna sig i en svensk kontext. Genom att belysa de delarna kunde diskussionen angående asiatisk och europeisk kulturvård och kulturarv belysas där deras olika ståndpunkter kring autenticitet och rituella praktiker kunde framhävas. Som undersökningsmetod användes en utställningsobservation som kompletterades med andra personliga kommunikationer och litteratur. Resultatet visade att utställningen delade information om kinesiska föremål från deras bronstid fram till början av 1900-talet som antingen kopplades till en viss dynasti, till olika föremålsutvecklingar med hantverksmetoder eller till olika samhällsfenomen som föremålen representerade. Utställningstexter och föremålsbeskrivningar bidrog med kontextbyggandet av föremålen, men det fanns även några montrar utan utställningstext där besökaren kunde skapa en egen uppfattning av föremålen. Den europeiska och svenska inblandningen visades främst i utställningens exportporslin som fanns över en stor del av utställningens senare halva. Handeln mellan Kina och Europa/Sverige blev därav det centrerade perspektivet i både föremålen och i utställningstexterna vilket skapade en stor kontrast till tidigare del som enbart fokuserat på de kinesiska utvecklingarna. Det resulterade i att det kinesiska kulturarvet hamnade i skuggan av främst den svenska inblandningen, och blev då en biroll i montrarna som framhävde de svenska framgångarna. / The purpose of the study was to enlighten the type of information the exhibition “The middle kingdom” at the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities gave and therefore show how the Chinese cultural heritage can be interpretated by existing in a Swedish context. By showing those parts, the discussion of Asian and European integrated conservation and cultural heritage be uplifted and show the different point of views according to authenticity and ritual usage of objects. An exhibition observation was used as the main method with complementary information from personal correspondence and literature. The result showed the exhibition shared information about Chinese objects from their bronze age to the beginning of the 20th century, all connected to a certain dynasty, to different evolutions of objects with certain craft methods, or other societal evolutions which was represented by certain objects. The exhibition text and the object descriptions contributed to the contextualization of the objects, but also showed showcases without any text, which allowed the visitor to create their own perception about the objects. The European and Swedish involvement was displayed especially in the exhibitions exported porcelain that appeared in a big part of the latter half. The trade between China and Europe/Sweden therefore became the central perspective in both the objects and texts in the exhibition which created a big contrast between the earlier part who only focused on the Chinese evolutions. It resulted in the Chinese cultural heritage placed in the shadows of mainly the Swedish involvement and became a subordinate part in the showcases and highlighted the Swedish success stories.

The collections of the Vasa Museum in Stockholm Sweden not only include the world’s only complete 17th century warship, the famous Vasa who sank on her maiden voyage outside Stockholm in the summer of 1628, but also a unique and extensive collection of dress artifacts, fragments from clothes in textile and leather recovered during the excavation of the ship. This study aims to present historical narratives about the labour, knowledge of craft and everyday life of the ship’s crew by analysing leather mittens and other types of artifacts related to the work on board as material culture, aided by early modern Dutch depictions in art showing work being done on large ships contemporary with Vasa. Two types of leather mittens in the Vasa museum’s collections have been identified as having parallels in similar mittens also from maritime context. These mittens are further investigated regarding the mystery of their making and specific traces of use. The results indicate that some of the mittens could potentially be of a particular Dutch style or origin, perhaps worn as a fashion statement among Dutch sailors. Other mittens of an unusually dark and heavy leather bear the signs of hard labour and work with scolding hot pitch and tar from caulking wooden ships. These mittens are also characterised by an economic model of cutting the leather that may connect them with the making of simple leather shoes found on Vasa, as the left-over material for one is highly suitable for the other. Both types of mittens reveal something about the sailor’s life before they enlisted on Vasa and prove that mittens could have distinct functions within the spectra of labour in a maritime context.Most importantly the results of this study suggest that the crowns attempt to force professional practitioners of craft to move from the countryside into the cities in the early 1600’s are not only connected to the development of guilds for leatherworkers in Stockholm, but also to the navy’s need for sailors and the general lack of leather in Sweden during the ongoing war. The presence of tools and material for leathercraft as a common find category among the crew's personal belongings can be regarded together with knowledge of craft culture in the countryside in the areas where boatmen were drafted can point out skinners and cobblers in the Finish coastal regions and countryside as craftsmen who both have knowledge of leathercraftneeded for making both mittens an simple shoes as found on Vasa. These groups of poor leatherworkers were among those targeted by discharges to the navy. Leather mittens interpreted as material culture are found to be consistent with the idea that individuals with a background as Finnish leatherworkers on the countryside may have ended up as sailors on the Swedish warship Vasa.